This is my first Tildes post and I'll remove it if needed!

I recently dumped some photos from an old cell phone on to an old windows 10 laptop to be stored on an external hard drive.

The phone is a 4 year old Galaxy with 128g onboard storage.

The laptop is an HP running windows 10 and is a notebook-like machine with about 30g total hard drive, the max usable is like 4 or 5 gigs after the OS etc.

At the time of transferring files, I found it quicker to use the available 2.5 gigs I had to put pictures directly on the laptop and then transfer them from there to the external hard drive.

Here is my problem:

2 folders, from separate camping trips, totalling about 380 photos and a few videos are stuck on the desktop and are claiming to take up 4.02 terabytes and thus cannot be moved.

I did notice the file type .heic is not recognized by windows 10, but all my other photos (several thousand,) are the same file type and take up a normal amount of space.

These individual photos in question are claiming to be around 7 to 8 gigs each.

There's not 4 TB between the phone(128g,) laptop(30g,) and the external drive(3tb.)

So the pictures are stuck on this laptop which is only acting as a surrogate computer while I'm building a real desktop PC.

I can keep this laptop forever, even though I'd rather donate it or something, but one of these folders has pictures from the last camping trip with my brother before he took his own life last year, I'd really like to keep them archived and backed up.

Any ideas? Anyone have a similar experience? Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Again, I'll delete this post if it's inappropriate.

Cheers.

EDIT: I just realized while proof reading this, that if I can update the codecs where windows can view the files, I could screenshot the photos, but that still leaves me at a loss for the videos.
I miss his goofy laugh, and want to preserve it for his son also.

My spouse and I adopted a 9 week old Husky puppy this past weekend who is suffering greatly from separation anxiety and we are at a bit of a loss on how exactly to deal with it. This is not our first puppy or Husky puppy, but the separation anxiety is new territory for us. We have spent a lot of time reading guides on helping a puppy adjust to being on their own and talking with a close friend who is a vet tech, but I wanted to see if there are any things we may have overlooked.

Things we are already doing:

1. Daily walks - we typically take 2x 10-20 minute walks during the day, depending on the weather. We are in the southeastern part of the US and it is unbelievably hot during the day so we go early in the morning and late at night, afternoon is pretty much not an option with temperatures reaching the upper 90's.
2. Lots of play time - tug of war and fetch are the most entertaining for her right now. We also have a neighbor that adopted a German Shephard puppy that is about the same age and they have loved playing together.
3. Crate training - We have a crate in our room which she sleeps in overnight and one in our work area for during the day when she naps.

Things we are starting to implement:

1. Leaving the room for short amounts of time. We are giving her a treat that is only used for this type of training that she really likes in hopes that she associates us leaving as a good thing because she gets a yummy treat.
2. Returning to the room before she gets really anxious so she doesn't associate the crying and destructive behavior with us coming back.
3. She has two Kong toys that I am going to put yummy food in before we leave the room to keep her mind occupied on that instead of the fact that were not there.

I guess I'm looking to see if there are any other tips or tricks we haven't thought of? Any advice or things that worked for your puppies?

My husband and I have a bachelor party weekend coming up for two of our friends (they’re a gay couple). Rather than having the kind of raucous, adult adventure that people commonly associate with “bachelor party”, we’re looking for more wholesome, nerdy stuff.

For example: we’ve already got an escape room lined up, and I’ll be bringing the full set of Jackbox games. What I’m looking for is other recommendations for party games and activities, especially ones that work with people who aren’t super familiar with one another. Everyone there will know the grooms, but we don’t all know each other.

Also, games/activities should be relatively simple to learn and play. There will be drinking.

Recommendations don’t have to be entirely clean or family-friendly by the way (we’re not opposed to something like Cards Against Humanity, for example), but we’re not a group that likes particularly raunchy stuff.

Hi, I have a weird cubic space in my garage wall due to the location of the chimney and stairs to the basement.
The lower edge of that cubic hole is at 41 inches (104 cm) from the floor. Its deep is 40 inches (101 cm). Width 39 inches (99 cm). Height 46 inches (117 cm).
Too deep for static shelves, I cannot reach the end. Too tall for sliding shelves (kind of drawer thing), I am 5'7'' (172 cm). In its current form, it is too much of a space for its practical use.
I thought that a carousel that moves shelves up and down (like in this design for shoes https://storagemotion.com/shoeselect/) but for heavier weights would be practical... I have no idea how to even name the parts to buy them, if they exist.
Also, I will appreciate suggestions for an alternative solution.
Thanks.
PS: located in Massachusetts, US.

I tried out Sync for Lemmy. Loved it, but I was not a fan of the tracking for ads and the price to get rid of that being $20. Anyone tried the free open source Lemmy apps? I used to use RedReader for Reddit, so I don't mind it being a bit worse than something like Sync.

I'm not sure exactly what you'd call it, I always think of it as just "chow" but it's a large portion of what I eat. Basically anything that is-- few ingredients, one pot or pan, everything cooked together and thrown in at the same time, cheap, easy, relatively quick, but hearty and filling.

So like my go to is a one potato, half an onion, cabbage, and one de-cased spicy sausage. Plus seasonings, depending on how I'm feeling either Indian (those premixed spice packets) or asian (ginger and garlic powder, mushroom soy sauce and chilli oil) . The prep work is maybe 2-3 minutes then 15ish cooking. I view it as "I want a cooked meal, but I don't want to spend any time on it."

Basic Household Tool List

(Edited to add suggestions from the comments and the general philosophy of this list)

• Tool bag (at least 15 inches long)
• Hammer (12 or 16 oz)
• Rubber mallet (white head preferred, non-marking)
• 6 inch Needlenose Pliers
• 8 inch Slip Joint Pliers
• 8 inch Crescent/adjustable wrench
• 10 inch Slip groove (large jaw) pliers
• Box cutter (optionally folding) + set of replacement blades
• Hacksaw + spare blades
• Scissors
• 25' Tape Measure
• Set of precision (small) screwdrivers
• #1 and #2 Phillips head screwdrivers
• Small and large straight blade screwdrivers
• Multi screwdriver with torx/phillips/straight blade heads
• half-round file (h/t @patience_limited)
• a metal putty knife or a 5-in-1 combination paint scraper (h/t @patience_limited)
• roll of twine
• roll of blue masking tape
• roll of Gorilla tape
• roll of black electrical tape
• super glue
• small bottle of wood glue
• 2" paint brush
• torpedo level
• small flashlight
• a strong neodynium magnet - to use as a stud finder and for many other things (h/t @the_man)
• 9v batteries
• AA batteries
• AAA batteries
• 50 1" #6 wood screws (zinc/steel, not brass)
• 50 2" #8 wood screws (zinc/steel, not brass)
• small box of 1.5" finishing nails
• light and heavy duty drywall anchors
• course and fine foam sanding blocks (h/t @patience_limited)
• 5 gallon bucket
• safety glasses
• N95 masks
• leather work gloves
• foam ear plus (h/t @the_man)

Bonus list (things that are more expensive or nice-to-have upgrades):

• a stud finder - the cheap ones are worthless, buy a good one or not at all (h/t @DeaconBlue)
• a battery powered drill + bit set (h/t @patience_limited)
• a set of metric and imperial allen keys (h/t @sublime_aenima)
• a basic socket set with a mix of metric and imperial sockets (h/t @auk)

The philosophy of this list:

A good starter set should include tools and supplies someone will be glad they had that they didn't know they needed. Even if they aren't "handy", a handier friend might use them (and they learn something in the process). It doesn't include very specialized things like demolition, electrical, or plumbing tools. If you're going to undertake projects in those areas, you should know a little about what you're doing, and you'll be able to buy the right tools for the specific project. As as electrical engineer, I particularly don't include a multimeter because I don't want to encourage someone to mess around with electricity if they don't understand how it might hurt them.

This list specifically does not suggest brands (except where the brand is the thing, like Gorilla tape). Opinions on what brand is best vary widely, but my general suggestion is this. Don't break the bank buying high end tools for someone who may never use them. A $2 hammer is going to be fine for someone who uses it once a year. If they are using them often enough to want something better, they can buy something better (or you can buy it for them).

A continuation of last week's thread. So, got any recommendations for good multiplayer games, and what do you like about them if so? Looking to get a multiplayer game going here?

A few of the open options from last week:
There's a survival Minecraft server
There's a game nights Discord server
There's a Guild Wars 2 guild for North American server players, contact me for an invite with your account name.
There's a Splatoon 3 pool
(Note that these are run by Tildes users rather than being officially Tildes.)

It’s happened a few times for me but my most recent example was Tear of the Kingdom. I had played Breathe of the Wild and enjoyed the early game immensely but I had found that the more inventory I had the less fun I was having. Having a literal arsenal of very powerful weapons all ready to go did feel earned by the late game but it took away from the fun of beating an enemy with its own stick aspect. So for TotK I played as far into the game as possible without expanding my inventory and found the game so much more enjoyable (fusing is a big part of that I acknowledge).
I’m aware of Ironman runs I’m looking for something a bit more complex. Nuzlocke rules revitalized the Pokémon series for me a while back and I’m always on the look out for more self imposed rules in games.
Has anyone else accidentally walked into a different version of a game that they found more interesting.

I am currently frustrated with having to pick another 2 hours of classes to take to maintain eligibility of a scholarship. I can't take any more major (CS) related classes, as I do not have all the prerequisites. I can't take any lower core classes as I have finished them all, from getting my general ed AA degree first. There are little filler electives I can take. One of them being first aid, a class that everyone says I need to take. However I do not want to take that class, it will be online and I had that professor for another online class last semester. I did not like the class at all. It was a read the textbook and answer the questions kind of class with no professor interaction at all. I think the first aid class will be exactly like that as well. There are some 1 hour classes I could choose from, however that would mean 2 more classes to juggle just to meet scholarship requirements. I am frustrated with this for multiple reasons, I'm indecisive, I've been putting it off all summer, and classes will start back very soon (aug 24th). I have tried talking to my family about it, but it ends up being a "you need to get this done" or a "just take the first aid course". They make choosing a class sound so simple when it is not as other stuff to juggle through. With it being so late it adds even more problems, as classes are filled up and deadlines are soon.

Does tildes have any advice about this? Anything you want to comment or add?

I struggle with trichotillomania which is a compulsion to pluck my own hair. Mine is focused primarily on my beard, resulting in unsightly bare patches. I am working through the mental health component of this condition already, but a better hair and skin care regiment could help reduce the triggers that start me plucking hairs.

I keep my beard relatively close cropped to my face. When the hairs in my bald patches start to regrow there is typically a lot of irritation which starts me touching my face, which leads me to find bumps like zits and blackheads and “weird hairs”, like kinky hairs, hairs growing in the wrong direction, particularly hard or soft hairs, anything that feels off when I run my fingers over them. This has the side effect of depositing more dirt and oils from my fingers onto my face, which creates a kind of feedback loop where the dirtier my face is the more I want to touch it, and the more I touch it the dirtier it gets. When I encounter these bumps and weird hairs I will want to pick at them and I won’t stop thinking about it until I do. It is a real struggle that I am working through and I figure if I can reduce that irritation that triggers it I’ll be less likely to touch and therefore pluck.

What I am hoping to find here are general care tips I can use for my short-cropped beard. What kind of products do you use for both the hairs themselves and your face, what methods do you use to trim, etc.? Currently I wash my face with a cleanser, followed by a toner, then a serum or lotion, but I don’t use any products specifically for my beard hairs themselves. I trim with an electric razor when my beard is between .5 and 1 inches long and I’ll trim it down to about 1/8 of an inch, or whatever setting 7, 8, or 9 is on my razor.

This thread can be used for general recommendations for anyone, but I'm specifically looking for a daily sunscreen I can wear on my face and neck.

I'm looking for a holy grail sunscreen that might not even exist (in the US, but I'm willing to import if needed). Here are my preferences:

• Not greasy
• No whitecast
• I'm not allergic to it (this I won't know until I try it -- I'm allergic to "fragrance" which is a relatively useless thing to know -- it just means that any scented product is a roll of the die as to whether or not I react with it because there are thousands of different things that can constitute "fragrance" in a product)

I found what I thought was it: this imported sunscreen. Went on easy, smelled great (green apple!), and legitimately worked.

Unfortunately, I'm allergic to it.

I've since replaced it with this Sun Bum face stick which is similar, but it doesn't go on nearly as easily and the synthetic banana smell is offputting. Nevertheless, I put up with it because 1) it doesn't activate my allergies (yay!) and 2) the banana smell is actually better to me than "regular" sunscreen smell.

Sun Bum actually has a fragrance free mineral sunscreen, but it still smells like sunscreen (which I hate) and it has a really strong whitecast, so it's out.

The Sun Bum I'm using now technically "works" for what I want, but I don't love it. I'm looking to see if there's something out there that I can actually love wearing, especially because I'm going to be doing it daily.

If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Just finished Season 6. I get the derision and have read plenty about it, so I’d like to hear about which episodes you liked - whether from this season or ones past. I ended up deeply enjoying Demon 79, which has been termed “Red Mirror” instead of “Black Mirror”. The performances, the filming style, the soundtrack all made this a treat for me. How about you all?

Please let me know if this has already been answered - request in title.

I'm looking for it because of this post, and I'd also like to make the logo the android-homescreen shortcut for going on the tildes.net frontpage via mobile browser.

Anyone have any ideas for a cool project involving an old school satellite dish? It's maybe 6-8 feet in diameter. I've seen some stuff like make an art project or an umbrella but I was hoping to use it for picking up signals again. I don't imagine I can use it to get TV but is there any satellites from universities or maybe hobby cube sats that I might be able to use?

Apologies if this is in the wrong topic it was this or ~space.

We've had a pretty awesome Minecraft server for about a week now (tildes.nore.gg). But our spawn area has been lacking (and unavailable for player modification).

If you're a creative player we could use your help!

How to get access

If you already play on Tildes SMP then you can connect directly to tildes.nore.gg:25566 right now! If you gained access to our SMP server after this post went live you'll have to ask either @Bauke or myself for whitelist access.

Rules

1. Play nice! You're all working on the spawn area together.
2. Please tag your work if you think it's likely someone will have conflicting plans so you can be contacted.
3. Build assuming a player will spawn in right on 0, 0 facing North.

This thread is posted weekly on Thursday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

If you'd like to help support Ukraine, please visit the official site at https://help.gov.ua/ - an official portal for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to people of Ukraine, businesses or the government at the times of resistance against the Russian aggression.

Happy Baldur's Gate 3 Day! Just wanted to open up this thread to see what everyone will be rolling as. I haven't played any of early access, so maybe be careful on the spoilers.

I'll be playing as a stereotypical criminal human rogue, mostly because I like sneaking around and dual wielding, who is aligned maybe lawful evil (planning, scheming to get what he wants) but I want to eventually bring back to good because he realizes how much his previous life has hurt other people.

I'm interested to see what you all will be playing, and what you're most excited about!

I know that a lot of people can only get into gaming as adults, and I have no idea how they do it. I grew up playing all sorts of games, so I'll try/enjoy anything from Harvest Moon to Baldur's Gate 3. But something that's been frustrating for a while is whenever I can't "get" something. An individual game is tolerable; I couldn't get into Stardew Valley the way I could Rune Factory, but oh well.

But shooters and (grand) strategy games feel incomprehensible to me. I enjoy Deep Rock despite being not any good at it, but it's my sole exception and probably because of the focus on PvE. Anything focused on PvP in general feels really unapproachable since I'll probably spend forever staring at a respawn or loss screen (I was just lucky growing up with SSB). I enjoy throwing myself at Dark Souls bosses way too early until I've finally gotten good, but in a team-based game I'd hate to force others into dealing with that. Strategy games are also kind of mind-boggling, but I also have trouble getting in the "conqueror" mindset that they seem to all require.

My friends really like those two kinds of games, so I'd really like to at minimum not zone out whenever they start talking to each other about them. Best case scenario, I could even try some of them myself.

Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love

Tell us what it is, and why.

Previous posts in series

Additional Details

Apologies if this isn't in line with the spirit of the group/site but I'm just looking for some advice really.

I'm 27m and just feel really stuck career wise. I didn't do very well in school and it took me a lot longer than everyone else to figure out myself. I have a degree in a redundant subject (very niche, no value in any career). Before COVID I was finally able to get my live music photography work off the ground but then that came crashing down. Other than that I mostly only have experience in retail and hospitality, and I've been a manager in both fields.

I'm looking for a work from home job for multiple reasons, mostly customer success/account management jobs and have had a few interviews too. I even got down to the final 2 for a promising one a few months ago. Every single job basically said that it was only down to my lack of experience compared to other candidates, but they did like me.

What is there I can actually do to aide this? I'm just worried that the older I get with only retail management work the harder it will be for me to start a real career path. The whole thing is getting me really down and I just don't know what to do.

Thanks.

Hi everyone... I am trying to build a gravity fed watering system for my ducks. I want to have a 5 gallon jug up top, and quarter inch tubing running down into the coop area. I have a float valve, and tubing, and brass compression fittings. Everything is a quarter inch, and everything is fitting together really nicely.

However, I have no idea what part I am supposed to get that connects the compression fitting to the upper jug. There has to be a part that goes inside the jug, has a washer of some kind, and pokes through the jug, so that the compression fitting can screw onto it. Otherwise there is nothing to hold that piece to the jug. Reference Image

I have never built anything like this and I am trying really hard. I've gone to three separate hardware stores to just kind of look at all the pieces, but it is so disorganized and all the tiny shelves just seem to contain random parts that don't match the label. There are acronyms I don't know and can't find any forums for this specific project. All the animal waterers that are online require a hose or electricity and I have neither of those, hence needing it to be gravity fed.

I am starting to get really really discouraged :( I don't even know what question I am supposed to be asking. I just want to connect the tubing into a 5 gallon jug without it leaking out, but right now I just have a compression fitting stuck into a hole in a jug and nothing keeping it in place and all the water leaks out the side. Apologies if this is the wrong section to post this.. Thank you in advance if you have any advice.

I'm normally the tech guy in my social circles and can make good recommendations but its been a few years since I was a collage student so when one of my associates who is about to start her college journey as a dental student asked me for my recommendation, I wasn't sure exactly what to recommend.

My first thought was an iPad paired with an Apple Pencil and a Logitech portfolio case. This was because she mentioned lots of note taking and drawing. I figured that option gave her the most bang for the buck and versatility to accomplish any tasks necessary while also having longevity to get her threw the next few years. As for what model, I haven't really figured out just yet.

My main drawbacks here are that iPads still don't fully replace a Mac or PC. I don't know what software her college will require and while many schools are modernizing some are still not quite there yet and may require specific software that can't be run on iPads.

Of course the solution to that problem is to purchase a MacBook as well. That should handle most any applications and maybe make longer essays and research papers easier to get through. Ideally that would be option number one, but obviously that's very expensive, and while I do not know what her and her families fiscal background is like, I think its safe to assume that in this economy, even with educational discounts, that's not the most feasible option for most students.

On the other hand just purchasing a MacBook instead of an iPad would work but not be as versatile since apple has yet to produce a 2in1 like the Microsoft Surface. Speaking of 2in1's I thought about the Microsoft Surface and even some Samsung 2in1's with their s-pen equivalent, but longevity has never really been Windows or Chromes OS's strongpoint. Not to mention I really am not a fan of Chrome OS and its many limitations. I know there is a lot of schools that use them, but they also tend to end up unfixable and unsupported.

Again... its been a minute since I was a student, so maybe there are things that I am not thinking about or realizing. I told her I would think about it and come back with some recommendations so I figured I'd ask here for some real life experience while I do some research on the subject.

EDIT

• Her major is dentistry
• She curranty has an iPhone
• I'll ask her to check her schools requirements
• I'll reply to everyone soon, I just wanted to make those things known for everyone.
• Thanks for all the input so far!

Hi everyone! Today I am releasing Backtick API, an unofficial Tildes API. I originally wrote it to power Backtick but quickly realized that it could be useful for other clients and projects that require Tildes data. The project is open-sourced, both because I would love community contributions and because I want to make the project as transparent as possible.

Q: Does it require or store any user credentials?

No. All the endpoints that are implemented scrape publicly available data that do not require any user credentials.

Q: Will this overload Tildes?

To prevent Backtick API from being a nuisance to Tildes, the code caches calls to Tildes for a short period of time. Depending on usage, it should reduce the number of calls to Tildes (vs a client querying Tildes directly).

Q: How can I use it?

A hosted version of the code is available through RapidAPI here: https://rapidapi.com/asnewman/api/backtick-api

Q: Are there any limitations?

To prevent the project from being abused and becoming a financial burden on myself, I'm using RapidAPI to manage usage. There is a generous free tier and a reasonably priced paid tier which will be used to cover server costs. In addition, I will be donating a portion of the paid plan revenue (my goal is 50% but will depend on load and subscription count) directly to Tildes via Github Sponsors. It's really important to me to keep this project and Tildes as sustainable as possible. I really would love to provide everything for free, but unfortunately, there are countless examples where that doesn't work out down the road.

Of course, if you do not want to use the hosted version, you are welcome to deploy the code yourself!

Q: Isn't scraping prone to breaking?

Yes! Users beware! Obviously, I will try my best to fix things if the Tildes code changes in a way that breaks Backtick API, but it's definitely a possibility.

Q: Why not just work on and contribute to creating an official Tildes API?

An official Tildes API will always be better than something like this and I look forward to when/if it gets implemented. That being said, I'm choosing the route that would be the quickest to continue the development of the Backtick mobile app. In addition, it's also the choice that is most fun for me. To work on a Tildes API, if the powers that be even want to have one, would require lots of coordination and codebase learning, something that will take a lot of time. I highly commend anyone who chooses to take on that task, but I do too much of that kind of work for my real job 😂

Please report any issues or feature requests through Github, this post, or the Backtick Discord server. Finally, I just want to thank everyone in the community for all the great conversations I've had, for providing helpful feedback for Backtick, and for creating a place on the internet that I very much enjoy being a part of 😊

I have two Macbook Airs that don't work. One is a A1932 (bad motherboard) and the other is a A2337 (I think a bad screen - it's cracked). Is it possible to take the motherboard from the 2337 and use it in the case of the 1932 (connected to that screen)? I understand the 1932 is an Intel Chipset and the 2337 is an M1 chipset, but would that really matter for what I'd like to do?

Hey everyone,

As a few of you may know, there was a paper released a few days ago claiming that an Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor (RTAPS) was created. You can see the original paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008

To bring things into perspective if this holds true we would likely dispense with energy and transportation concerns. It would be akin to the discovery of fire, penicillin or the transistor. A groundbreaking change. See here for a more detailed, bullish list of things it can help with: https://nitter.net/Andercot/status/1685088625187495936

There are many communities that are discussing this. The best summary I was able to find is here: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-temperature-and-ambient-pressure-superconductor.1106083/page-17

There is still a very much active debate there (and elsewhere online) of people on the viability of the original people. Many are pessimistic that the evidence is scant and that the original publication does not hold its water. An interesting summary of the sentiment of a part of the community can be found through the (faux) betting market of Manifold here: https://manifold.markets/QuantumObserver/will-the-lk99-room-temp-ambient-pre

On the link above they are also diligently tracking any replication attempts. Currently we are at the stage were theoretical simulations have validated the possibility of the purported materials to be superconductors (https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.16892).

Finally, a nice replication attempt that tried to make the creation process better and demonstrated some of the effects required to prove superconductivity (scroll up): https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685804254718459904

This is very exciting, because even if some properties are valid, it gives a mjor boost to the whole field.

I'm a little over halfway through and I really have to force myself to keep playing it. Some of it is really cool and a lot of it drives me crazy. Sorry to rant a bit but a lot of the discourse online is extremely positive and I just wanted to let this out.

• So many cutscenes. They're pretty good cutscenes. The acting is largely very good, most characters are really enjoyable (although maybe one day FF will realize that antagonists can be multifaceted and not just generic evil badman). But so, so many hours of cutscene -- run over there -- cutscene -- go to the one map location that's unlocked -- cutscene.
• So much time wasting slow running around. Sometimes the maps are designed like a (linear) maze for apparent reason except to make it take longer to get somewhere. I see a quest marker and I just immediately "ugh" at how long it's going to take me to plod over there.
• And as a corollary to the above, exploration sucks. I learned very early on that there's no reason not to beeline to the next goal, so it makes the slow running that much worse. Dungeons are basically right out of FF XIV, which means one straight line and a very clear pattern of trash mob, trash mob, boss, rinse, repeat.
• The gear and stats are a non-entity. You go through the story, it more or less hands you periodic levels and gear. It feels like they thought including these things was obligatory, but for what they put in the game, they could have just not bothered.
• Combat is pretty fun! A little repetitive. A little samey. I wish there were more options for using all the skills you get. I have all these things I could unlock, but the very limited set of slots you get make they basically a non-option once you've picked the ones you like. The system just feels kind of half baked.
• And in that same vein, the big quick-time-event boss battles are neat too. I don't love them, because it feels a lot like I'm not playing a game anymore, but they do look pretty fantastic. Some of the latter ones go on for way too long. Just like, I was done with punching this fantastic looking beast 10 minutes ago.
• Maybe I haven't heard enough of it or listened long enough, but the music is disappointing. Which is sad because I love the tracks in XIV from the same composer. So much here is just ambient or otherwise underwhelming. A bunch of critical moments are just remixes on the classic theme, which is nice, but not really selling me on the new score overall.

I'm probably going to stick through to the end (slowly, with many breaks for Dave the Diver), at the very least because it was so expensive. I just wish it were better.

Here's a nice website for comparing between a lot of different computational notebooks, such as Jupyter, Google Colab, and Observable. (And popularized by Mathematica, though spreadsheets sort of count.)

I'm wondering what computational notebook software other people have used and how you like it? I will make top-level posts for some that I used.

Hey all, hope everyone is doing well today. I've been using a Pixel 6A for going on a year now, and I'm not very satisfied with my purchase. It's a decent enough phone, but it seems that the fingerprint reader doesn't work more than half of the time, and Google Assistant is about as reliable. It also just has a lot of weird little things that add up (for instance, plugging in the battery may not indicate that it's charging until you unlock the phone). Not to mention that I'm just not fond of the company these days, and I'd like to gradually ween myself off of their applications and such.

I actually upgraded to this phone from a Moto G6 plus (bought for >$200 via Amazon, compared to this $500 device), and I find myself wishing I hadn't hopped in the hot tub with it in my pocket that day.

With that said, what sort of alternatives do you fine people suggest? I'm not too concerned with specs (as long as it plays Pocket Trains, I'm happy lol), mostly battery life, Android, and sustainable company practices if that's still a thing in tech.

Currently looking at the Fairphone 4, but was wondering what else may be floating around out there. Thanks in advance, and have a great day.

As an ex-Redditor, I only subscribed to 3 subreddits:
/r/dumbphones
/r/nosurf
/r/simpleliving

As someone who is incorporating more of an "offline" vs. "online" life, and downgrading some elements to live a lifestyle that's more focus on the present and get out of the house more (family, kids, pets, walking, etc.) instead of just reading and absorbing tons of information on my laptop.

Are there any people here who are interested in this or is there a section on Tildes for this already? (I know Reddit is a much bigger site, just dipping my toes in the water to see if there is something like that on here already.)

What was your favorite web page back in the day that you would visit religiously and tell all your friends about but have since lost? Did it shutter permanently or did you lose the bookmark when switching computers never to find it again?

Back in the days of printed web page yellow pages and search engines you had to submit your page to be reviewed before it was listed, I had found a page about movie easter eggs, errors and insider information. It had factoids about nearly 1000 movies ranging from obscure facts, mistakes in editing, anachronisms, funny on-set stories and the like.

It was fun to read that this character was named after the art directors niece, the stunt car is visible losing 8 hubcaps in the main chase, etc. It was amazing to read how different movies would interact (IIRC, Kim Bassinger's gasp/jump reaction to opening the door in "Batman" was real due to them having a xenomoprh from Aliens there instead of Jack Nicholson since they were filming at the same time). It was also cool to read that certain characters made cameos in other movies (most people caught that Randolph and Mortimer Duke from "Trading Places" were in "Coming to America" but there are so many other not as obvious blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos). I never would have noticed the car visible in the background of Johnny Cage vs Scorpion in the orchard fight in "Mortal Kombat" without this page--and now I can never unsee it when I watch it.

I don't know if I lost the bookmark or if the page shut down so I deleted it but any search I've undertaken for this page in the last few decades only seems to return listicles like "21 obvious anachronisms in modern movies!" but not my all comprehensive target.

Honorable mention to Damn Interesting (although I did find that one again after a few years). Although it's underwent some turbulance and changes since I first disovered it, I would often reread the articles and gleefully looked forward to each new article when I was younger. With article names like Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom it was hard not to be intrigued.

I think this album might be a unicorn, but I'm gonna put this out there anyway. Please suggest more prog/avant black metal that is this good. I've done a few cursory google searches, but the only thing I've found that even comes close is The Sham Mirrors by Arcturus. Maybe Beneath the Lights by Enslaved too.

IS is just such a masterpiece. I love the keyboards, the clear but muddy sound, the guitar work. It's just so god damned good. Please give me some more good albums to check out in the same general space.

I have a business trip to Denver in a few weeks, but I'm planning on staying a couple extra nights in order to see the city. My SO is also coming along. Neither of us have been to Denver -- any favorite things to do/see/eat?

• We both enjoy art museums.
• I've heard good things about Wings Over The Rockies, but I'm not sure how it compares to other aviation museums across the country.
• Food: We are both kind of foodies, but it doesn't have to be fancy. Any cuisines to look for, or unique places to go?
• Natural things: We might visit Rocky Mountain National Park or something like that. We have a rental car and don't mind driving if the destination is worth it.

EDIT: Post-locked topic

I didn't get the chance to reply or explain myself, ironically, as I posted this topic last night and then woke up this morning to 42 comments this topic being locked.

In short, I didn't want to block swearing from Tildes, I just wanted to find out if there was a NSFW filter, as I had my first one pop up in the feed yesterday. Reddit and other sites allow you to block NSFW content from the get-go. And yes, it is the minority by far on Tildes.

As for the swearing, I don't know why I assumed that the NSFW would remove that, I must have been tired when posting this topic. (And yes, I know that this is the internet and it's filled with non-friendly content, so it is naive to expect otherwise, sadly.)

I guess it would just be nice to have a place where you can have both great quality posts (such as on Tildes), as well as the comments be free of some unnecessary, low-quality words. I think Twitter and others allow you to block some words or topics.

I apologise for @Deimos that he had to step in to bring the peace, I didn't mean for this to happen. And apologies to the community for bringing any unrest. This was never my intention.

Hi everyone, only been on Tildes for a few weeks now.

First off, I love the quality of the content and the community's camraderie.

The only question is whether there is a way to filter NSFW, adult or profane comments. There is such great content on here, with amazing contributors, but sometimes you just get the people who like to use profane language like it's an adjective, and it has no place in the topic or discussion. I know we can't block people, but is there a way of filtering out such content, comments, or users?

Anyone watch Formula E? The 2022/2023 season, or Season 9, just ended in London.

Full Race Results

2022/2023 Season 9 Final Standings

Full, Final Standings

I missed most of the second half of the season, but at least caught the last race!

I was really hoping rookie Jake Hughes (Neom McLaren Formula E) would do well, but he turned out to be more of a quali driver; could never keep race pace. But he did finished 12th in the standings, ahead of his teammate, Rene Rast. I suppose that could be viewed as a solid first season.

Overall I've only been watching Formula E since about 2021, but it seemed like this year was less bumper cars than the last two. The poor racecraft definitely turned me off from the series at times.

Looking forward to Season 10!

As a preface, this comes from the perspective of an American looking in on Europe. I'm curious in particular what any Europeans (please include your country of origin/ethnicity if you feel so inclined) feel about this post and the future of the EU.

Europe is a unique region, to put it lightly. The extremely high level of development relative to the rest of the world over this last millennium as well as so many technological innovations in that period of time led to a Europe ready to exert its influence upon the rest of the world. We can comfortably say that, while examples do still exist, colonialism as an institution has largely faded. Europe is a much more varied continent culturally and ethnically despite a space roughly equal to that of the USA. We've all heard the common sayings about 200 miles is long in Europe where 200 years is long in America and generally speaking that does hold true.
That said, Europe in the modern era really does feel like many small countries functioning as one big entity with the European Union. The EU has only gained credibility and legitimacy and it is now the institution I expect to hear from on matters within the EU first, even ahead of any individual nation state.
All of this to say, I think a united Europe is the strongest possible future for Europe. No individual state in Europe is large enough to exert an influence upon the world without the rest of Europe behind them. Globalization, while diminished in recent years, is still happening and I don't see a decentralized Europe as "winning" globalization as dozens of individually tiny states.

I could continue writing, but I think you understand my position. Now I would like to point to the article I found that really made me think about this, here.

I would also like to ask, what do you see Europe and the European Union standing for? Should it continue to centralize or is the current level of control enough? Too much? I didn't mention Ukraine or defense in this post but obviously that has a huge impact on all of these questions and I would love to hear if that has impacted your perspective on this admittedly grandiose idea for a united Europe.

People from all countries welcome to discuss, but please do mention your country if you feel comfortable doing so!

Edit: More reading for anyone interested.

I have dug around the net for a little while now, and other than direct purchase from Japan I am having trouble finding light novels. Specifically for several anime series I liked and want to read the originals for. Anyone know where I can find light novels in general for purchase or otherwise?

What are your favourite songs to play while doing work?
Personally I mostly like songs with no lyrics that have calmer instrumentals or ambient video game soundtracks. I made this Spotify playlist with some friends and I'm curious what resonated with other people :)

I'm facing this now and it seems like an impossible and monumental choice.

How did you decide to marry your partner? How long had you been together? If you lived together beforehand, for how long? Did you make you choice on having kids before marriage?

Hey there! I posted this on r/magictcg a while back, but I've seen and received many new ideas for cards and I'd love to see if you have any new ones.

I had my Japanese copy of Sliver Queen in my wallet for years because my friend found it for $2 in a bargain bin, and I thought I could just buy another - not knowing it was Reserve List. Whoops. So I decided to build an Illegal Slivers EDH deck where every card is somehow not quite legitimate, with a few restrictions - no power 9, no OG duals, and if I can help it try to make as much variety between restrictions as possible, all while trying to keep it as a legitimate deck that aims to use Queen as the wincon. But I'm only about a quarter of the way there. Here's what's up:

• Cards from other games with the same or similar names are used; Swamp from Wyvern, Island from Dominion, Ancient Tomb from Pokemon, Xiahou Dun the One-eyed from Wixoss, Karoo from One Piece, Duel Masters copy of Muscle Sliver...

• I'm using relevant illegal MtG prints - World Championship decks, Mystery Booster playtests, an art copy of the Unearth Sliver I keep forgetting the name of, silver borders / acorns, etc. Also Clickslither (from Legions!) instead of Quick Sliver (from Legions!).

• I was looking for a Wheel of Fortune tarot card before I found that lööps sticker and decided to go with that.

• My favorite is that someone originally stole the shipment of Crystalline Sliver promos before they were going to give them out... So if you had a copy of it at one point, it was literally-illegal stolen goods. Eventually they retrieved them and distributed them.

I've got other ideas, and I'm trying to break each rule. Looking for:

• The best single thing from the ban list

• Lutri as companion, or one card used twice

• One ante card

• Planechase and Conspiracy

• The card Unquenchable Fury, to be confused with Unquenchable Fury

• A 30th Anniversary card

• Some oversize cards as regular-size proxies

• An AI generated Sliver as a proxy

• Some configuration of Unfinity Stickers to make a new Sliver card of my own

• A World's Smallest for something like a Night's Whisper

• An Armageddon trading card for Armageddon, a Hearthstone from WoW TCG, a Force of Will from L5R TCG, a whole bevy of cards from LotR card game... I still also need Sliv-Mizzet.

And once this is all done... Find 100 different card sleeves to wrap these in. I'd also love - LOVE - to get the Queen graded and still use it as my Commander.

So, Tildes - how else can I make this deck even worse? Thanks!

For Honor is having a free week(end on August 3rd) and have also released a new hero, the Ocelotl.

The Ocelotl comes equipped with a Macuahuitl club and Tepoztopilli spear, using these to have infinite chained attacks, and a few bash attacks. He is a hybrid, described as a ganker and disabled. His feats makes it so at tier 1 when he dies, he can move in spirit form and respawn wherever after 10 seconds, but with very little health. The longer you wait to respawn, the more health you have. The tier 2 is a complement to this, so the enemy that killed you is marked, and tier 3 increases attack speed and damage done, after you kill someone. Tier 4 is a spear attack, which drags an enemy towards you and inflict bleed.

I have tried the new hero out and overall, finds him relatively balanced. While his feats adds a new form of stress, his actual moveset is okay. It isn't stupidly OP, nor is it weak. It's pretty smackdabb in the middle, imo. Also, his feats are an inderect buff to heavy heroes, as boosting a zone is important, so the Ocelotl doesn't respawn in you back zones. This makes it so heavies can more easily build up renown (they gain extra renown from boosting), while also adding surprise attacks. All in all, I like playing against the Ocelotl (as I main Warlord, and like boosting) and I also like playing a Ocelotl.

My contribution:

It's 2:17am on a school night, you're a teenager, and you're googling "most disturbing movie ever made" - because you can. Among mentions of films like A Serbian Film and Audition, you also notice that a film with two names is commonly mentioned: Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. Huh, even the name sounds creepy. After looking behind you to make sure no one's watching, a brief glance at a summary of the movie explains enough to make you want to forget about the whole thing forever. Regardless, you fall further down the Wikipedia hole... (or in my case, you really do forget about it for 10 years, only to unfortunately stumble across it again yesterday.)

Salò was made in 1975 and is based on a novel written by Marquis de Sade in 1785. It is known as one of the most disturbing films ever made, but as I learned recently, the film and novel somewhat pale in comparison to the real life of the author. Sade was a French guy who committed all manners of wild, outrageous, and terrible behavior throughout his life, and his Wikipedia page is a crazy ride. You know the word "sadism?" This man is literally the etymological origin of sadism. (Also, practically his whole existence requires a content warning. In this case, it seems that the art has never been separate from the artist.)

In 1763, Sade was charged with "outrage to public morals, blasphemy and profanation of the image of Christ," which at first makes him seem pretty cool. Alas, it all goes downhill from here, as he was known as a nuisance and danger to every community he lived in.

Later, when Napoleon Bonaparte issued a warrant for his arrest after being offended by his novels, Sade was imprisoned, then had to transfer prisons because he was being such a disgusting sex pest to other prisoners at the first one. His family had him declared insane and moved to an insane asylum. While in the asylum, he was permitted to direct and perform his plays, using the other patients as actors. Somehow, even when living amongst the most underprivileged members of society in prisons or insane asylums, it seems that Sade was never fully prevented from promoting his ideas and art to the world, even though the subjects he explored were universally horrifying to society - then, as well as now. I found this fascinating.

Sade wrote The 120 Days of Sodom on scraps of paper while in an insane asylum in 1785, and lost it in the Storming of Bastille during the French Revolution. It was somehow rescued (eternally unbeknownst to him,) and was finally published in 1904, to eventually be adapted into the film that sent me down this whole rabbit hole.

While reading about Sade's life, I was surprised not only by the major events in history he was present for, but the lasting impact he had on philosophy, art, and culture. As mentioned above, the word "sadism" has its roots in his name. The Surrealists adopted him as an inspiration in the 1920s, dubbing him the "Divine Marquis" and praising his ideas about "sexual freedom." (Side note: I love surrealism, but I swear, I never stop discovering new, unsettling facts about Dali and his ilk.) Along with Surrealism, he is said to have had great influence over Modernist art. Some consider his work to be a precursor of nihilism. Sade also influenced Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, and at least one serial killer.

Discussion

Learning about this guy left me astounded, and I just needed to share with someone. Could I have just posted the Wikipedia article? Yes, but that's not as fun as writing down this crazy story and some of my feelings about it. (Note: I did not link sources excessively in this post, as it generally follows the structure of the Wikipedia article and sources can be found there.)

I couldn't believe I didn't already know about Marquis de Sade before today (maybe because I've never taken a philosophy class?) It also got me thinking that I'd like to hear about any other outrageous, controversial, or just plain strange characters in history that you might know of. Even the other historical figures mentioned above have pretty wild lives themselves. (And on the other hand, I suppose there's so much here to chew on that we may just discuss Sade in general. If so, have at it. I'm particularly fascinated by how such a sick individual has heavily influenced significant parts of our culture, and how to feel about that.)

Fun facts are welcome, considering I certainly didn't bring any.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

It seems that this thread has sparked a lot of interest from the gamers of Tildes, but the forum just isn't a great place to actually get things going. To remedy this, I've created the Tildes Game Nights discord server where people who like the format of Discord can get together and play games :). I hope to foster the same sort of civility we have here, so the rules are pretty much identical to Tildes' (with a bunch of the rules being taken directly from the code of conduct). I already have some channels set up for the games that got a lot of votes in the linked thread, but I can add more if there's popular demand.

Here is the invite link :)